9/15/2021

Process Notes

We begin with raw court case data scraped from the General District Court Online Case Information System.

We apply a series of cleaning, standardization, and data aggregation procedures, including:

  • Standardizing plaintiff and defendant names (e.g. “LLC” v. “L.L.C.”)
  • Correcting common misspellings specific to these data (e.g., “Houseing” –> “Housing”)
  • Extracting defendant ZIP Codes for each case
  • Removing errant duplicate case records
  • Identifying residential defendants
  • Identifying corporate/government plaintiffs (i.e., non-human entities)
  • Calculating total case costs
  • Determining presence/absence of defense attorney

The summaries and visualization presented here include unlawful detainer cases filed between July 1, 2018 and March 31, 2021. Integration of cases from April through June is in progress.

Data Breakdown

Visualizations

On the following slides, we present a set of data visualizations reflecting eviction cases filed against residential defendants in the Albemarle and Charlottesville General District Courts.

Overall Case Totals & Outcomes

Case Outcomes by Court/Plaintiff Type

Over Time, Albemarle GDC

Over Time, Charlottesville GDC

Filings by ZIP, Albemarle GDC

Evictions by ZIP, Albemarle GDC

Filings by ZIP, Charlottesville GDC

Evictions by ZIP, Charlottesville GDC

Defendant Costs, Albemarle GDC

Defendant Costs, Charlottesville GDC

Remaining Data Questions

  1. Is every writ of eviction reliably recorded on the Virginia General District Court websites? (We see writ-issued dates for ~14% of cases with eviction judgments using one column, ~31% using another column, and ~45% combining the two.)

  2. Are data about whether judgments were satisfied in a case reliably recorded on the Virginia General District Court websites? (We see ~10% of cases with eviction judgments identified as satisfied.)

  3. Is the relevant geographic scope determined by the General District in which a case is filed (which includes defendants with ZIP codes listed outside of the Charlottesville and Albemarle areas), or is it determined by the defendant ZIP code provided in the court filing?

Potential Analyses and Revisions

  • Inclusion/exclusion of serial cases.

  • Examination of frequent serial filers.

  • Inclusion/exclusion of filings against commercial properties.

  • Further analysis by ZIP code.

  • Comparisons based on presence of legal representation for defendants (<30 cases).

  • Others?